Also in the arena was a house
robot, Major Damage, a 960 kg
monster running on a tracked
chassis from a miniature JCB digger
and armed with a hydraulic claw
and hammer. Nobody messed with
it. It was well behaved, occasionally
using its claw to haul robots out of
the pit, as well as performing its

Team Batter’s machine
after a bit of a battering.

usual function of separating
machines that had jammed together.

The last fight of the weekend
saw five heavies going after each
other in the arena, amid clouds of
CO2 and the bright lingering sparks
characteristic of high speed collisions between 100 kg machines
with steel or titanium armor. As
roboteers loaded their machines into
cars and trailers, some were already

Ian and Weird Alice.

discussing plans for a trip to
Nottingham later in the month to
try and accumulate more points to
get them into the finals in
Maidstone at the end of the
November. About a dozen heavies
and the same number of feathers
will make it and one of each will
emerge as winners. SV

Go to www.roamingrobots.co.uk for
more details.

Hydra in the pits.

EVENT REPORT:

Comb ts Texas Cup

at Maker Faire Austin

Texas Cup trophy
awarded to Pipe Wench.

● by Wendy Maxham, Team PlumbCrazy

Saturday October 18, 2008,
10: 30 am and a 10 year old boy
leans over the railing near the pits.
“When does the fighting start?” he
yells down to me. “Noon,” I shout

back, “but you’ll probably want to
get here a little earlier because the
good seats should go fast.”

And go they did! The best seats
(the bleachers at the front of the

arena) filled
up about a
half hour before each scheduled
show time. People stood two to
three deep on the sides of the arena